The problem with this is that those engineers, doctors, scientists, etc. are not generally from large voting blocs in the US, and as such they have little political support. The Democrats strongly rely on the Hispanic vote, so they naturally pander to the community with immigration policy. The GOP is nativist in its outlook, but [recently] realized they need at least a chunk of those Hispanics and are changing their views.

Nobody needs the Asian American vote though, and Asian voters are not known for being a solid base for either party. If Asians made up 10% of the population, things would immediately change, but as it stands, they make up ~4.5% and are heavily concentrated in non-competitive states (like CA and NY).

In short, politicians have nothing to gain by pushing for an intelligent immigration policy, even if it's best for the US economy.

Gee, I didn't see any "amnesty a bunch of unskilled and uneducated border-juming parasites" box to check on the ballot. Did I miss something? What I did see were a bunch of ignorant imbeciles re-electing the treasonous socialist scumbag in the White House because of all the freebies he's been doling out at our expense for the last 4 years. If the GOP nitwits get behind an amnesty they are finished because parasitic invaders will never vote for them and neither will patriotic conservatives. I say build a wall and deport every last one of those parasites.

The GOP nitwits who think that getting soft on the invading hordes will somehow get them the nebulous “Hispanic vote” have another thing coming. These miscreants vote for the freebies and benefits Comrade O has been bestowing on them on the taxpayer‘s dime, that‘s all. They will never vote for the GOP. Conservative Americans won’t vote for the GOP either if they sell out to the invaders.

Take Meg Whitman for example. Ex-boss of Ebay, now boss of HP, and one time candidate to the governorship of California. She had a Hispanic housekeeper for 16 years and was, by her own admission, very satisfied with her services. Then during the campaign, it appeared that, unbeknownst to her, the housekeeper did not have a green card. She promptly fired her. She lost the election.

Same for Mitt Romney. He was caught not once, but twice, with a gardener working on his estate without a green card. In Mitt Romney's case, the gardener wasn't hired directly by him but was part of the crew employed by the landscaping company. Romney fired the gardener (if not the company - I forget) and insisted this would never happen again. Note that this mind set cost him the election too. (History shows that America never does well when it bashes its immigrants, but that a subject for another day).

What did these want-to-be leaders accomplish? Suppose they shake the heavens and manage to find staff that is 100% guarantied to be native born or legal for themselves, they might feel self-righteous but they have just made it harder for everyone else to do the same. For it remains that such jobs are not filled by Americans.

While it may be rational for a private citizen to severe ties with someone discovered to be "illegal", for someone who wants to be a leader it is not.

In both cases, the workers were productive members of society. When immigrants do such time-consuming tasks deemed menial such as keeping house, mowing lawns, looking after children etc, they free more qualified people to do more productive things. Whitman and Romney should have seized the evidence to recognize that there was a problem and it needed to be addressed.

Yes the dilution of American founding principles is to be lamented, but immigrants are not the ones to blame. Immigrants come to America to work as they always have, not to mooch. It is not immigrants that are responsible for Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, welfare and all the hand-outs that are bringing us to bankruptcy. It is possible for Republicans to be pro-immigrants and stick to their principles at the same time. If immigrants tend to vote Democratic, it's mostly because of the poor welcome and the hypocrisy of the Republicans.

Nonsense on stilts! Immigrants in CA are mostly liberal parasites (incl the few whites allowed by our racist, antiwhite regime). Illegal aliens are the lowest of the low. They criminally trespassed because they want to improve THEIR lives, not OURS. They'll work if they have to, but they're quite happy to get welfare if available!

The entire population of the USA except the so called 'Latinos' and Amerindians are the real illegal immigrants. Get that straight.
Most black people perhaps we can excuse , as they were brought against their will.

Saying we need to secure the border first, then we will do an amnesty, is like saying we will lift prohibition as soon as the last speakeasy is closed. If there was no prohibition, there would be no speakeasies.

Many sectors of the American economy (agriculture, maintenance, people care, construction, gardeners, domestic help, etc...) depend on immigrant labor and there is currently no way for these people to come in legally. Those who come and do it anyway in spite of the risks, the demonization and persecution should be recognized for their contribution. In denying this, the Republicans are hypocritical as they trash their own principles of individual freedom, freedom of association, free enterprise, pro-business stance, competition and economic growth.

The idea that immigrants "take jobs" is ridiculous. It suggests that there is only a certain number of jobs and one person having a job means another one is unemployed. It's the notion that there is just one pie and it needs to be shared by all, instead of making more and bigger pies. In fact, as long as there are human needs and desires that need to be fulfilled, there are jobs to be created.

The very mean stance taken by the "self deport" advocates is totally at odds with the character of American people, who normally tend to be generous, optimistic, positive, welcoming, appreciative of hard work and self reliance.

You are a brainwashed fool with a sophomoric understanding of economics. Whether immigrants"take jobs" is an empirical question. In brief: if we let in highly skilled immigrants whom we could be reasonably sure would employ their talents in the private sector, the immigrants would be "making jobs". OTOH, the typical LEGAL immigrant (not to mention illegal alien) is an impoverished, low skilled family member of a previous low skilled immigrant. They "take jobs" not directly, but indirectly through their leeching of investment capital via the parasitical welfare state (60% of LEGAL immigrants receive govt assistance!!!). Of the 40% of immigrants who legitimately work, they do not necessarily take jobs from Americans, but they do lower working class wage rates - which is why foolish, greedy Republican and Wall Street elites support immigration in the first place.

More ridiculous xenophobia. Most of Americas best ideas have come from immigrants from Europe. So if you don't want to be overrun by Mexicans then allow more people from Europe and Asia if they have a university degree or money to start a business.

Walker Rowe you've got the whole thing upside down . Your proposition still does not take account of the Mexicans banging on your kitchen door asking to be let in. How would you propose to deal with that ?

It allowed people who broke into the country yes. If nation-states are to mean anything it means at least the ability to determine who we let in and who become citizens. We shouldn't settle for having to make millions of illegal aliens legal every few decades because our politicians won't enforce the law or build a wall that will cost a few billion dollars compared to a few trillion we spent policing other people's countries.

When people say "we should secure the border first" they are just repeating what someone else said without giving much thought to the idea. What are you talking about? Fixing half of a problem instead of the whole problem? As much as people dislike the term "comprehensive" it should be just that. The bill should fix the problem of illegals in the country but moreover it should address the issue of H1B and other work-related immigration issues. Anyone who has a university degree should be allowed to come to the USA or any student who studies there. So many of our inventions (Google, the telephone, semiconductors, rockets,...) have come from foreigners that we should allow educated people to come with no limits. It is inevitable that immigration will change the face of America. But do you want that face to be one of poor migrant workers or educated engineers?

Legal immigration is a different matter. I'm talking about illegal immigration and on that subject I don't know what you mean by;

"When people say "we should secure the border first" they are just repeating what someone else said without giving much thought to the idea"

I want to build a wall to protect the border how is that hard to comprehend? That will reduce new arrivals. Then we are left with the problem of those already here. A policy of deportation and ensuring employers do not hire illegal workers would be a good start. Disagree if you prefer something different but that's a credible policy which is doable and please don't insult me by saying the only reason people could possibly disagree with you is because we don't think about it. There are conservatives who think about this a lot and come to different conclusions, you know it is possible for conservatives to actually have a brain...

A wall. Have you heard of the Maginot Line in France? The French built a wall to keep out the German Army and the Germans just went around it. Besides Mexicans are not even coming here anymore as there are more jobs in Mexico than Gringolandia. As for deportation even conservative politicians say that is not going to happen. And as for conservatives in general they got shellacked in the last election.

I have. Have you heard of false analogy? The Germans in WWII outflanked the Maginot line by going through the ardennes and attacking France through its border with Luxembourg. I don't think a similar thing can happen to the USA flanked as it is by two oceans on either sides... Good example of effectiveness of walls is the Israeli wall which keeps terrorists out. But you raise an interesting point, because a wall failed once a long time ago, walls can never be trusted again. Bad wall.

As for the point they are not coming over here, that was only a momentary phenomenon the result of the housing crash where a lot of illegals worked. Now they are beginning to come back again. I would like to base my immigration policy on something more than the belief that the USA will continue to be in a recession...

I'm not saying it is going to happen I say it should happen.

And what does the last point prove exactly? That conservatives lost the last election so until we win again we aren't allowed to debate you guys? Great plan!

The 1986 Reagan Amnesty was projected to provide citizenship to between, 1.1, and 1.3, million illegal aliens.....
to date, 3.4 million illegal aliens have applied for, and received, citizenship, based on the 1986 Reagan Amnesty.

The only way a physical barrier might work is if you make a mile wide area on this side of the border a live fire zone, and send a couple military divisions down to practice marksmanship at moving targets. If you don't like that, then the talk about "securing the border first" is not going to work.

If you just want to stop illegal immigration, implement MASSIVE fines for hiring illegals and fund the investigators to find them. Make the investigators and the fines so scary that no one gets paid for anything, even cutting your grass, without really good documentation. Oh wait, that's an expansion of the federal government, and Republicans are against that.

You don't need to go that far in securing the border. Certainly it is not necessary to fire upon un-armed civilians. I mean that would likely halt the arrival of migrants to around 0, but I would be fine with having less drastic measures even if, say, 50,000 or so could get through every year. It is not necessary for it to be air-tight, merely to substantially alter the likelihood of getting through, which should prevent people from coming here in the first place.

I don't think the documentation side of things is that harsh. Just bring proper ID and employers should check, quite simple. Republicans are fine with government doing some things, such as national security. Securing our nations borders is a large part of national security, so I don't think Republicans would have a problem here, they're not against government just government in certain spheres, national security is not one of them.

This time, it's the same. Plus ça change, plus çe la même chose. The House of Representatives will kill amnesty again. Sorry Economist, but you globalist oligarchic douchocrats won't get to drown us in foreigners dependent on the taxpayer for their existence who destroy our wages and culture while taking our jobs as affirmative action beneficiaries. We win again. Ha ha.

You win nothing. This contest you can never win. Throw in the towel whilst you are still alive , and give yourselves at least a modicum of some chance of survival, but, again , you will never win. That much is clear. This flailing and frothing at the mouth are clearly the signs of the panic of desperate bigots who simply cannot bear to face the reality of the end of their delusions.

Our nation has tipped and is going down fast. Losers in the GOP would have us surrender to pressure by the powerful lobby behind about 20 million illegal aliens. Most conservatives are resigned to the fact that a communist regime now has the support of an American majority and controls the direction of our once great nation. But most conservatives also are far from joining the GOP losers. If our nation is to go down, it will go down without our support.

The indigenous people , the real natives , who you now describe ( disparagingly ) as Latino are only coming back after centuries of being driven out of their homeland to reclaim it. What are you getting into a flutter about ? What was done to them was worse than apartheid , what was done to them was just short of a wipe-out. So why are you in a flutter ? The sensible thing would be to reach a compromise with them.

The indigenous people? Real natives? Ever hear of the Solutreans? I thought not. You're obviously brainwashed and ignorant, unable to comprehend The Constitution or any other law. But my point was you and your socialist pals won the election and now must deal with the results. America is experiencing a river of wealth rushing to protected coffers, much of which is to friendlier nations. America risks becoming the same kind of illiterate sewer that accurately characterizes Mexico. I wonder if you'd open the border to everyone -- or just to Mexico. Hmmm... My best guess is you're just another fat liberal voting for the entitlements while they're still available. Flutter that.

After dispossessing the indigenous people of Canada , Australia , New Zealand and other parts of the world including the USA of their lands you still dare to speak of some trumped up constitutional right - a constitution devised by an invading people ? Naked theft if ever there was. Again , if you have any compunction , any scintilla of right , justice or morality in you , you would hand back these stolen lands to the rightful owners and negotiate terms of settlement with them. You are the aliens , not those whom you now try to keep out of their land. You , are the illegal immigrants not them.

Hoo boy, you're more resilient than the average idiot. I have a couple of questions. First, precisely who are those indigenous people to whom the evil immigrants should give the land? Secondly, since nobody originated in North America, should not the indigenous people pass that land on to...hmmm...let's see now, perhaps God? At least you exposed yourself with the term "trumped up constitutional right" as a miserable lover of either communism or despotism. Either way, you're clearly a democrat, fairly representative of others in your party.

You seriously do neither yourself nor your republican party ( ... I presume ) any favours at all. If this is the tone and level of debate you employ to advance your cause , then prepare for more severe drubbings in forth-coming elections and your party's slow demise and eventual extinction.
'Hoo boy ' ... , what gutter do you come from ?

Oh good grief, are you still here? Don't you tire of continually whining? You've not clarified your position. You don't know what you're talking about (Solutreans). You've not explained whether you'd open the border to everyone. You simply stand in your mommy's basement and screech. I'll give you this. The GOP is going down, fast. And if it goes along with the socialists again, it won't make any difference because it will have become totally ineffective. By that time all the men will be gone, most of the wealth will be gone and the nation will drift, wondering how it will pay the entitled.

On the comments pages of TE you will find some of the most intelligent and highly educated people one could ever hope to come across ; you are not one of them.
If the discredited and dubious ' soultrean ' theory is one which you wish to introduce into a serious conversation then you are welcome to carry your debate elsewhere , I have better things to do with my time than to engage with blockheads.

For anyone else who might read my comment , the correct spelling is solutrean and not 'soultrean '. It is not a word I would use often , as the very theory itself has no credence with any serious geneticist or archaeologists.
Proponents of the theory first appeared about a decade ago at the university of Exeter - which although a fine university does not have the reputation of a world class genetics or archaeology department , there appears to be hardly any support for the hypothesis among any researchers or academics in serious university anywhere in the world.

Holy cow. You actually looked it up. But you're being stupid again. You brought up indigenous peoples but don't want to admit the Solutreans came 20,000 years before the famous Asian migrants. And you probably haven't yet had time to Google the fact that far more Clovis points have been found in the New England area than in the Southwest. Of course none of that has anything to do with this subject. Let me make it real simple for you. You won the election. And now you act like the puppy that caught the car. You want to blame the carnage on the ones who told you not to do it. Distract and squirm but it won't work. Whatever happens from now on is your fault. The conservatives are resigned to the loss and most will watch and yawn. Enjoy what you and your socialist pals did.

Never touched the stuff. That's a vice for socialists who don't work for a living. BTW, you never answered the first question: Would you open the border to everyone or just to Mexico. Amnesty for everyone? DREAM for everyone? Yawn. Since your side won, you get to make the rules while the conservative side gets to walk away. I guess we can close this subject unless you have answers or suggestions.

I've been retired for years, live comfortably and have plenty of time to refute moronic views, fend off the usual democrat smears and present the case for smaller government, smaller debt, smaller taxes, smaller entitlements and less regulation. Because your only points seem to be of the democrat "talking" kind, I'm guessing you're not fully cooked yet. I'd guess you don't have much of a life and need entitlements to live. I understand why you want to give your money to someone who didn't earn it because you have so little to give. But I don't understand why you want me to give your friends my money? Speaking of questions, they're piling up and you seem to have no answers. Have a nice weekend.

The '86 Amnesty produced about 3 times as many illegal aliens as were estimated. This time, I'm betting it will be at least 4 or 5 times as many as estimated. That is roughly another 50-60 million. The GOP really will be a thing of the past if they agree to that.

If they amnesty the 20-30 million illegal aliens, with no reform of our insane family reunification provisions wrt legal immigration, thereby increasing the Hispanic population of the USA by, oh, say, 200 million within 20 years, we will have lived through the greatest ethnocultural betrayal leading to total national suicide in the history of the world.

I know one thing: if the GOP cuts its own throat and caves on immigration (we need exactly the opposite policy - TO END THE LEGAL INVASION OF OUR COUNTRY), I will never vote GOP (or donate to) again. I'm in CA, and immigration (aka "Democrat voter importation") has ruined my home state.

I know 4 other guys (and one girl) who are of the exact same mind. You sell out our country, Republicans, and we will vote 3rd party forever, no matter what the cost. I would rather have Democrats win forever - just really drive America into total Communistic annihilation leading to national breakdown and civil war (which is what Democrats do, combine the very most rancid ideological elements - moral libertinism with socialism - in history) - than cast a ballot for a party of racial/national/ideological traitors. Can you GOP goofs afford to lose even what I suspect will be approx. 1-2 MILLION of your former supporters? Think you'll make up our defections to rightist third parties with Mexicans? Oh how little you understand Latinos!

Your so-called defections do nothing whatsoever to hurt the Republican party. They're hurting themselves enough as it is. All six of you could vote for Ron Paul every election for the rest of your lives and it would do absolutely nothing to harm the Republican party. As for the 1-2 million supporters you claim to speak for, somehow their raging protests on the internet and in coffee shops around the world always turn into votes for Republicans at the ballot box. The only way a third party will be elected in modern-day America will be if one of the two we currently have collapses and becomes politically extinct. When that happens, whatever third party replaces it will become the new second party and the cycle will continue.

Reporting with glee by TE and all the self-righteous liberals dominating our media. See? I told you so. It's the Hispanic votes dummy! Now open up the border and let them flood in, give them free citizenship, free money for every child born(to boost our sagging birth rate), free education, free healthcare, make Spanish an official language and whichever party that propose these brilliant measures will be the next winner at the white house!!

Go ahead, give the country to the huns and visigoths, then let them VOTE!

A sane first step would be to make robust (albeit, not perfect) documentation easy to obtain. Then, if someone wants to come work in the US, it would be easy to do it legally. Being legally in the country should be a separate act from attempting citizenship. Then design a citizenship process that clearly states that the country is puts its interests first, and the applicant will need to show how they will benefit those national interests.

You notice how few dems there are around these boards pushing their causes now that they have won the election?

They'll be back in 18 months when the next congressional election comes along.

And then a wave of them in 3.5 years when they want to extend Obama's liberal agenda - that is if there is anything liberal not yet done by then.

And the remarkable thing is that we have let it all happen. It's going to have to get very serious for the country financially (the government runs out of credit borrowed from abroad to funnel payments to those who think they deserve it) before real hard working Americans wake up. I hope it will not be too late by then.

If Romney had won the presidency with another 2% of the popular vote, and the GOP had sqeaked through with a majority in the senate, which they should have done given the state of the economy, they would have had the opportunity to come up with a way to finally stop the flow of illegals, and then bring about immigration reform that showed genuine respect for Hispanics, most of whom are hard working. And in this process appealed to Hispanics who value hard work and getting ahead, and have conservative social values

They lost this opportunity and any immigration reform brokered now between congress and Obama will be credited to Obama. Obama will make sure of that.

To the whites who didn't vote, or were so stupid to vote dem without realising the massive economic and social ills being visited upon this country by the liberal left, take a bow.

2% majority is a squeaker? What do you call it when a candidate loses the popular vote and has the courts hand him the presidency?
And America has got to the only Western democracy where a cogressional/parliamentary party can get out-voted by half a million or more votes and still get a significant plurality of seats. Even with the epidemic of corruption in India, it doesn't have gerrymandering like the US does. When will states in the USA get real independent electoral commissions to draw up district boundaries?
America needs a real centre-right party. Unfortunately, it's not the GOP. Honest conservatives don't run with vague platforms. They make solid promises on what they'll cut and follow through with them. They also don't play politics for the sake of it (like with the fiscal cliff). They prize responsible governance above all else. They also don't cut taxes just to hand out breaks, if they risk putting the budget into deficit (like Bush Jr. did or Paul Ryan proposed with his "mathematically impossible" budget plans). The Tea Party offered some hope of fiscal sanity. Unfortunately, they got hijacked by Koch brothers and aligned themselves with the religious right, turning out candidates that are far from rational conservatives. At least they're honest about their desire to gut the social safety net. The rest of the GOP is screaming for cuts, but have put forward scant little on what they want to cut. I've been looking for the GOP platform on cuts. Haven't found it yet.
No Democrat will have to gloat. If the GOP continues on its current path, it will prove to be its own worst enemy for a long time to come. And that's sad for America.

Based upon the subtitle of this article I am not sure in what country a 51 to 49 win = a drubbing but I will go with it. As far as immigration is concerned I am typically a fiscal conservative / social liberal and I agree we need some immigration reform. Our agriculture community and some other trades are starving for labor that many folks in this country are getting too lazy to do (I blame that on the computer, tv, parents, welfare system, etc.), and we also need more highly educated and skilled workers as well. For my two cents I would add a couple of caveats:

1. Make it much easier and quicker to come into the country legally while making it much harder to survive in this country illegally.

2. Make welfare, medicaid, food assistance, and other gov. benefits strictly off limits until a legal immigrant has worked and paid taxes here for a certain period of time. If you aren't talented or skilled enough or don't speak enough English to find work here you go back home - no exceptions.

3. You commit a felony in the first 5 years you go to jail and then go straight back to where you came from originally - no exceptions.

The question nobody is even asking is will the illegals, whose hard work and toil in heat and cold have won admiration, be willing to do so if they became legal? Let’s set aside for a moment sociology, equality, human-rights, rights and wrongs and such. Why are illegals here in the first place? It’s because unemployed legal residents refuse to take up such minimum-wage paying jobs since there is an American safety net for them - food stamps, subsidized housing, Medicaid, etc. – that protect them from having to do so. This is true whether one is white, black or brown. Thus, the very benefit that Americans enjoy from illegals - low cost for fruits, vegetable, domestic help, house construction, etc. - will cease to exist when the illegals become legal and start claiming benefits of safety nets and refuse work picking peaches under a hot sun. What will happen next? A tide of more illegals to fill the need while the cost of the safety net on taxpayers increases? Price for peaches increase to attract legal workers? If so, shouldn’t the country do that now and encourage “self-deportation” that Mitt Romney alluded to?

Tread carefully. Realistically, there is a fine balance between illegal status and cost of goods and services in the US. Changing one will affect the other.

And, if more illegals are returning now or more of them are not coming, the reason has to do with the slowing of American economy and perhaps improvements in their home countries’ economies. When American economy improves, look for the tide to reverse

I recommend "Press 2 for English, Fix Immigration, Save America" by an immigrant, S. Rob Sebhani. John Boehner is trying to implement by baby-steps an amnesty to accommodate the Latino community and get their vote. THIS WILL NOT WORK! Latinos will credit the Democrats for bringing any good consequences about that this Congress may pass. Obama illegally put into law by Exec. Order amnesty (the Dream Act) for 2.1 million illegal immigrants--not counting the millions of parents and siblings who would also be legalized as a result, all of which comes at a phenomenal cost...to guess who? It especially affects those states who have high numbers of illegal immigrants. The decision to come across the border is a crime, but it is the FAILURE of this Congress's foreign policy to insist on good voernment in Mexico, Iran, Pakistan, Africa etc; we need to create the desire for these folks to return home. But these illegal folks would rather play the victim here than to fix things in their own country & Health & Human Services & Homeland Security does not help when they advise them by pamphlets & other means what taxpayer programs are available to them.
Call 1-866-220-0044 ask for John Boehner's office & tell him you oppose any form of amnesty for those who have broken our laws. We the taxpayers should not be responsible for those illegals and their children, nor should they be rewarded for breaking our laws!

Immigration definitely needs reform but the reform should start by changing the fundamental policy from family reunification to a point based system which awards points for education, skills and investment much like Canada's system. An adjunct would include an effective and controlled guest worker program. If any amnesty is ever done it should not include the right of sponsorship (ability to sponsor family members for US citizenship).

It's not immigration that is controversial in the U.S., it is "latino" immigration that is controversial. Whatever happens, it will not involve more "latinos" becoming legal residents. Asian and European scientists, great. Australian businessmen, fabulous. African oil engineers, wonderful. But, unskilled emigration from nearby nations will continue to be opposed by a majority of Americans and a majority of members of Congress.

With 12 million illegals here already taking jobs from Americans it's no wonder we have an unemployment problem. The really bad news is that our semi-literate electorate can't see the 'elephant in the room,' and is now headed towards making this problem worse.

Does anyone really think the U.S. economy can absorb all the unskilled that want a piece of the American dream, and manage to sneak in?

Votes will not come as a result of passing any reform as far as Republicans are concerned. As we saw in the last election, voters are looking for "free stuff". From free healthcare to extended welfare, Democrats have shown a penchance for stealing from Peter to pay Paul. The problem will be, what happens when Peter has nothing left? That reality, I'm afraid, is coming soon.